I don't think I'll take the medal as the minute and a half of the race I actually won. I'll take it as the last decade of the hard slog I put in.

Learn, only to live. Live, only to learn.

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

it was my first doll that water went into and water came out of much earlier it was the diaper I wore and the dirt thereof and my mother hating me for it

Perhaps being hated in the right way is preferable to being loved in the wrong one.

The idea that I wrote something that stood for the way I feel about things, and that it lasts, that's probably my favorite thing that I've done.

In the end I'm in love with it [Western European easel painting]. And that's where a lot of the influence from the work comes from.

I like to work half a day. I don't care if it is the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours.

People who call me the Twilight girl and mean it. Please, pigeon hole me. That means I did it right.

I don't think my religious convictions should be held against me.

However, the 1956 agreement refers to two islands while the Prime Minister [Shindzo Abe] is talking about four islands.